Following a great morning in the Conwy Valley I drove down to the coast and over to Dwygyfylchi to meet our local Councillor, Gail Hall.  Gail won her seat last May and has not stopped working since being a fine advocate for her ward on Conwy County and also a hard working and knowledgeable member of the Snowdonia National Park Authority (little wonder considering her strong family connections with the Dolgellau area).

Gail had invited me to the Capelulo School and Village Fete and it was a pleasure to attend.  The weather had attracted a good crowd and everybody were clearly having a good time.  However, there is a cloud on the horizon with Capelulo being one of the schools under 'review' by CCBC in their current in-depth review of primary education within the County.  The concern at Capelulo is the fact that a potential merging of the Pen Cae school in Penmaenmawr and Capelulo is under consideration.  The fact that Capelulo has a strong roll of almost 100 pupils with Pen Cae being close to 200 has contributed to the concern about the plans being considered (I stress that they are only plans for discussion) for a new combined School to be located between the two villages.

I was taken on a tour of the School by the excellent Headmistress and her supportive Deputy and shown some of the problems with the building which had been identified in the CCBC report.  Whilst some issues raised seemed reasonable on the whole I was very impressed with a bright, airy and clearly well functioning school which enjoyed huge community support.  The Headmistress and her team are a committed group and this was apparent in the support they received from the community on Saturday.  The review of Schools in Conwy must in my view take into account the views of the parents and from the conversations I had on Saturday they seemed to be more than pleased with the way their children were being educated at this thriving village school.

Guto Bebb